5 ms·

Maybe we could add in the title the support for objective-c compilation. It's really important.

plorkyeran 11y ago
I'd guess that obj-c compilation is just done with clang (as they're already using clang for Android). The fact that they've apparently reimplemented UIKit/Foundation/etc. is the more surprising part to me.
- melling 11y ago
  Unfortunately, many developers are going to be writing code in Swift. Xcode and Swift are baked and there's plenty of Swift information (e.g. http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html) At this point, it's probably not worth writing in ObjC just to be compatible with Windows.
  - marpstar 11y ago
    sure, maybe today. but this lays the groundwork for Swift to eventually come to Windows as well. seems naive to think that this wouldn't be their end goal.
    - melling 11y ago
      I'd love for Swift to be open source. Realistically, it'll take 2-3 years at best. I've been waiting for F# to mature for cross-platform development. That would be a great language to move to.
  - rickyc091 11y ago
    Swift probably still won't be used in production for some time due to the editor (Xcode) being extremely buggy. Error messages aren't great and with each new release of Xcode, there are syntax changes.
    - melling 11y ago
      People are already using Swift in production. In fact, they suffered through the slow compiles, etc of the older Xcodes. http://making.duolingo.com/real-world-swift http://making.duolingo.com/real-world-swift I wouldn't write any new code in Objective C. Swift is just a better language to work with. 12 months from now, you'll be much happier that you wrote 25k lines of Swift in 2015 instead of Objective C.
      - vor_ 11y ago
        I use Swift for small applications, but the language is clearly incomplete, and and its tools are not ready for large, complex projects. You can use it, but it's painful. Just today, I had to write dozens of lines of RawOptionSetType code to mimic a C bitmask.
        kenrikm 11y ago
        I've been developing for iOS since 2008, so much this! Swift is just not ready, I constantly run into "WTF" moments when I find something that's standard in most languages "has not been implemented yet" in Swift.
        melling 11y ago
        No examples? Swift is already much richer than Objective C.
  - cwyers 11y ago
    I think the point of this is to port existing apps. Microsoft has a lot of different technologies (like .NET with Xamarin) to build multiplatform apps going forward. But this helps Microsoft catch up to Android and iOS in terms of app availability now.
    - s73v3r 11y ago
      Those technologies have been available for a while, now. If a company hasn't been using them already, why would they start now?

I'd guess that obj-c compilation is just done with clang (as they're already using clang for Android). The fact that they've apparently reimplemented UIKit/Foundation/etc. is the more surprising part to me.

melling 11y ago
Unfortunately, many developers are going to be writing code in Swift. Xcode and Swift are baked and there's plenty of Swift information (e.g. http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html) At this point, it's probably not worth writing in ObjC just to be compatible with Windows.
- marpstar 11y ago
  sure, maybe today. but this lays the groundwork for Swift to eventually come to Windows as well. seems naive to think that this wouldn't be their end goal.
  - melling 11y ago
    I'd love for Swift to be open source. Realistically, it'll take 2-3 years at best. I've been waiting for F# to mature for cross-platform development. That would be a great language to move to.
- rickyc091 11y ago
  Swift probably still won't be used in production for some time due to the editor (Xcode) being extremely buggy. Error messages aren't great and with each new release of Xcode, there are syntax changes.
  - melling 11y ago
    People are already using Swift in production. In fact, they suffered through the slow compiles, etc of the older Xcodes. http://making.duolingo.com/real-world-swift http://making.duolingo.com/real-world-swift I wouldn't write any new code in Objective C. Swift is just a better language to work with. 12 months from now, you'll be much happier that you wrote 25k lines of Swift in 2015 instead of Objective C.
    - vor_ 11y ago
      I use Swift for small applications, but the language is clearly incomplete, and and its tools are not ready for large, complex projects. You can use it, but it's painful. Just today, I had to write dozens of lines of RawOptionSetType code to mimic a C bitmask.
      - kenrikm 11y ago
        I've been developing for iOS since 2008, so much this! Swift is just not ready, I constantly run into "WTF" moments when I find something that's standard in most languages "has not been implemented yet" in Swift.
        melling 11y ago
        No examples? Swift is already much richer than Objective C.
- cwyers 11y ago
  I think the point of this is to port existing apps. Microsoft has a lot of different technologies (like .NET with Xamarin) to build multiplatform apps going forward. But this helps Microsoft catch up to Android and iOS in terms of app availability now.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    Those technologies have been available for a while, now. If a company hasn't been using them already, why would they start now?